Moving Southern Water North and Seawater West

Danwei translates reports of a proposal to hydrate Xinjiang by pumping seawater 2,000 kilometres inland and 1,200 metres uphill from the Bohai Sea:

The summit’s basic ideas on the subject of “Moving Seawater West; Bringing Bohai to Xinjiang” were as follows: At the northwest shore of the Bohai Sea, raise the seawater to a height of 1,200 meters above sea level and send it to the southeast part of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. From there, skirt the foothills of the Mazong mountains and enter Xinjiang. The tentative plan is intended to fill salt flats, saltwater lakes, and structural basins with large quantities of seawater to form man-made seawater rivers and lakes, thereby suppressing the desert. At the same time, a large quantity of seawater will naturally evaporate under the abundant sunlight of the northwest, becoming moist air that will humidify the northern climate and provide a source of increased rainfall, thereby achieving the goals of controlling the country’s deserts and dust storms and completely transforming the poor ecological environment of the northern and western regions.